OK, I've long been curious about the genetic possibilities in this game, and thought of an interesting way to explore them.

Here's the situation: An alien world is suffering a complete cataclysm, and in desperation to preserve their race, they sent out an interstellar colony ship, the only one of its kind (because they did not have time or resources to build more). The crew was chosen based on who had the most valuable skills for survival and building a new colony. However, to be fair, civilians were chosen via a lottery to fill a limited number of "breeder" spots. They have no special skills, but are all certified healthy and fertile. This was done because the crew was going to be busy working, and raising children is a major endeavor, especially if you're trying to raise a lot of them, to build up the race again.

The trip was largely uneventful, with all the civilian colonists, and most of the off-duty crew in stasis. But then, CALAMITY! The ship's engines suffered a total melt-down, and all the stasis pods were released, shot into space in the desperate hope that they would land, somewhere, and manage to survive, despite all odds. They were linked via special alien-communication-technology (call it what you will), so the sims in the pods (awakened upon being released from the ship) were able to communicate with each other, and they knew when each pod was destroyed.

Only one pod survived, crash landing on your Sim world. The traumatized aliens sought help from the natives, and explained their situation. Taking pity on them (and seeing that they were absolutely no threat, and could not even "contaminate" the native sims, being biologically incompatible), the powers that be offered them a disused spot of land, and some starting funds. What they do with it is up to them. They are to live by the same laws as all the natives do, and may fully assimilate into the community, with the only exception being that they CANNOT breed with the local sims. It simply will not work (You can woohoo, but you can't Try For Baby).

The colonists must now breed amongst themselves, to try to maintain their race and establish a thriving alien colony.

Now, here's where it gets REALLY interesting: You civilian space pod had only six sims in it - one female adult and five male adults. The first generation will be easy enough, but with only one woman to start, how will they possibly manage to rebuild their race?

The woman becomes the Matriarch (Generation 1), and passes on rulership of the colony to her chosen daughter, down through the generations, until the Fifth Generation Heiress reaches adulthood, and takes her places as Colony Matriarch. By that time, they should be far enough removed from the original Matriarch to be able to marry at will, rather than based on genetic compatibility or need. In fact, you may choose not to allow your aliens to marry, at all, until their breeding responsibilities have been adequately performed.

Start with 6 adult CAS sims, using a specific skin tone (either download something you like enough to see it all over your neighborhood, or else use boolprop testingcheatsenabled BEFORE entering CAS, plus Shift+N and Shift+M to enable you to access in-game alternate skin tones, such as the default alien, vampire, zombie skin tones. Don't do mannequin skin tone, unless you have a hack to allow it to be passed on to babies). Specific eyes, hair, facial shapes and the like are optional, but definitely choose a specific skin tone that is definitely going to identify these aliens as not biologically compatible with your other sims.

The aliens MAY interbreed with in-game aliens, via alien abduction. However, these half-breed sims may not become Matriarchs. Matriarchs must be full-blooded colonist aliens.

You could make it a Patriarchy, instead, if you wish, but you MUST be consistent on which gender has the babies, and have only one of that type in the founding generation. No Same Sex pregnancy mods! However, in a Matriarchy, you may have a mod to allow females to get pregnant from alien abduction.

Start in an empty neighborhood, with no pre-existing lots in the area (but you can keep all the townies and NPCs). This area is designated as The Colony, and locals have not built anything there, because (insert your reason for it being available here). Locals will not live in the colony borders unless invited to live in a colony household, by existing colonists. They are free to visit as much as they want, though, so you can have thriving business relations with them.

Then, start Building your Stranded Alien Colony (according to your favorite Build a City or Build a Royal Kingdom rules). This would lend itself quite well to a BARQ (Matriarchy, remember?), with the pixel donors taking their ranks according to whatever criteria you set up. Just start them all out together on the same base lot, then move them out as you wish to establish their own homes. It will be different than regular BACC and BARK games, because you start with six sims, BUT, you can never add CAS sims! All future Colony sims must be born in game!

Game ends when the Fifth Generation Heiress becomes an adult and takes her place as the new Matriarch. Count up your Colonists at that point.

5 points for each full-blooded colonist3 points for each alien/colonist half-breed1 point for each alien/colonist descendant with less than half colonist blood

All other points you earn will be based on whatever Build-a-________ ruleset you decide to use.

Note: If you expand to Downtown and other sub-hoods, the Colonists still "own" that area, and playable sims must be born in the game, or invited to live with a Colonist. The only exception to this rule is University, which may be mixed with native dormies, mascots, cheerleaders, professors, etc. Alternately, you can build a Colony University, from scratch. If you do this, then use "Boolprop TestingCheatsEnabled true", and shift-click to select the FIRST FIVE colonist students to attend the university. After Shift-clicking on them, you can add them to the Secret Society. They won't get abducted to the Secret Society, but they can go to the lot you set up for them, and then all future playable sims will have to befriend these five starter SS members, in order to join the society, themselves.

Veeery interesting indeed. I've long been considering an alien RQC myself, but not this spelled out.

If I've understood correctly, the second matriarch would have to mate with one of the original males (that is not her "father"), alternatively a half-breed. Is this what you had in mind? If so, the grey hair as a turn-on might come in handy

Any thoughts on triplets and quads? Elixir of Life/Cowplant milk? I figure there should be some restriction or penalty there.

Note for myself: in order to achieve "less than half colonist blood", a telescope spawn would have to reproduce with another telescope spawn.

Yes, the second matriarch (and sisters, if available) would have to mate with older males to whom they are not related, and they'd have to alternate on down the line. In fact, I think each one would have to have children with as many males as possible, just to spread the genes around, raising the odds of there being an appropriate match in the next generation.

As for Elixir of Life, Cowplant milk, vampirism, trips and quads, that would be entirely up to you. Personally, I think if you've earned them, they are fair game (Elixir of life, Cowplant), and vampires have their own challenges, so that's fair, too. Trips and Quads - yes, you have more babies, faster, but then again, you have MORE BABIES!!! to take care of. I think they balance it, just by sheer inconvenience. Perhaps if you make a rule that you can have the mod, but all births must be random, so you can't count on it.

If your sims are very fast (making lots of use of their businesses, for example, for their socializing needs to get the relationships up quickly), they can pop out the babies in quick succession. Also, if even one of the businesses manages to raise $1,000,000 before the oldest daughter is a teen, you could open a private college and grow her up as soon as she becomes a teen, then drop her out of college, and she becomes an adult, and ready to start the next generation of babies, while the first generation of men are still relatively young, or at least still alive. That sounds like something Twilight would do.

Also, yes, a hybrid mating with a hybrid, actually would even out. Hmmmm. I'm not sure about that. 1/2 plus 1/2, divided by two... Yeah, I'm not actually sure that last point thing is even possible, now that I think about it. It would be, if you could mix locals in, but you can't, so....

I know!!!! Alien babies, born to local sims, would be biologically compatible with the colonist aliens, because they're all aliens, even if they're a different breed. That works.

However, the matriarch, at least, has to be full blood, so that means a direct line from the matriarch and full-blooded fathers. No hybrids in that line, at all.

MichelleCYoung wrote:Yes, the second matriarch (and sisters, if available) would have to mate with older males to whom they are not related, and they'd have to alternate on down the line. In fact, I think each one would have to have children with as many males as possible, just to spread the genes around, raising the odds of there being an appropriate match in the next generation.

*starts mentally mapping out potential family tree*

As for Elixir of Life, Cowplant milk, vampirism, trips and quads, that would be entirely up to you. Personally, I think if you've earned them, they are fair game (Elixir of life, Cowplant), and vampires have their own challenges, so that's fair, too. Trips and Quads - yes, you have more babies, faster, but then again, you have MORE BABIES!!! to take care of. I think they balance it, just by sheer inconvenience. Perhaps if you make a rule that you can have the mod, but all births must be random, so you can't count on it.

Yeah, I agree.

If your sims are very fast (making lots of use of their businesses, for example, for their socializing needs to get the relationships up quickly), they can pop out the babies in quick succession. Also, if even one of the businesses manages to raise $1,000,000 before the oldest daughter is a teen, you could open a private college and grow her up as soon as she becomes a teen, then drop her out of college, and she becomes an adult, and ready to start the next generation of babies, while the first generation of men are still relatively young, or at least still alive. That sounds like something Twilight would do.

Or negative Elixir of Life to the adult stage (one keg should do it, plus an eventual birthday cake). With life extension, one could in theory keep all of the original males.

Also, yes, a hybrid mating with a hybrid, actually would even out. Hmmmm. I'm not sure about that. 1/2 plus 1/2, divided by two... Yeah, I'm not actually sure that last point thing is even possible, now that I think about it. It would be, if you could mix locals in, but you can't, so....I know!!!! Alien babies, born to local sims, would be biologically compatible with the colonist aliens, because they're all aliens, even if they're a different breed. That works.However, the matriarch, at least, has to be full blood, so that means a direct line from the matriarch and full-blooded fathers. No hybrids in that line, at all.

So moving in locals and having them be abducted/impregnated by aliens would be encouraged for half-blood purposes.Half-telescopian/half-local + full colonial = half colonial, 1/4 telescope, 1/4 local

I'm trying to map out all the possibilities but my math doesn't add up at the moment, will try to make a genetic table (Punnett square?) of some sort. What I can say so far is that the "less than half colonial" probably won't add up. If a telescope baby from a local mates with a telescope baby from a colonial, the result will be 50 % telescope, 25 % colonial, 25 % local (ergo, the +1 point can be kept).

Are telescope babies listed as siblings by the game and can telescope babies become pollinated via the telescope?

I think that once you get telescope into the mix, it would make them compatible with a local, yes. My theory is that the telescope aliens are a genetic bridge between the colonists and the locals. This actually happens in nature. I forget what it's called, because it's been decades since I studied biology, but yeah, it happens. Species A, B, and C are from the same family, but A and C are not biologically compatible, whereas B can breed with both A and C. Once you start getting mixed breeds in there, it becomes something of a crap-shoot as to whether or not they can breed, depending on the family, and the percentage of B in the mix.

So, I'd say that as long as there is at least 50% Telescope alien in the mix, then they are compatible with anybody. What do you think?

"Are telescope babies listed as siblings by the game and can telescope babies become pollinated via the telescope?"That depends on whether or not you have a multi-PT hack. If you do not, then they are all children of the same pollination technician, so yes to siblings and no to pollination. But with a multi-PT hack, you can have all sorts of relationships.

MichelleCYoung wrote:So, I'd say that as long as there is at least 50% Telescope alien in the mix, then they are compatible with anybody. What do you think?

I think that sounds good.

"Are telescope babies listed as siblings by the game and can telescope babies become pollinated via the telescope?"That depends on whether or not you have a multi-PT hack. If you do not, then they are all children of the same pollination technician, so yes to siblings and no to pollination. But with a multi-PT hack, you can have all sorts of relationships.

So in order to maximise the number of hybrids, you'd have to have several PTs.

I made another table in about how many different full-blood combinations each generation can have, if the first Matriarch has a daughter with each of the 5 males. I did it in the back of a notebook I don't have with me atm, so I'll have to either reconstruct it or wait 'til tomorrow to post it.

I'm not going to post the image, but here's what I've gathered regarding full-blood combinations:

The 1st gen gives 5 possible pregnancies (pretty obvious). If there are 5 daughters each and these all mate with the "original" (1st) gen males that they are not related with, the result will be 20 pregnancy combos (these are gen 3).If one were to have at least one male and one female for each gen combo (so basically twins, resulting in 40 sims) and all of these mated with those of their same generation but not related, the result would be 120 sims if I've done my math right. Plus 60 sims if the gen 3 females hook up with the gen 1 males they aren't related to.

I'd boot up a new hood and try it out, but the QBC is leaving me a bit fed up with babies.

Well, I'm both sleep deprived and hopped up on pain pills, and STILL in pain, even after taking the highest dose I'm allowed, so I'm just going to trust you on all that math.

After a nap, I think I might just have to go play it, but first, I need to find a good multi-PT hack, because that Species B seems like it will become more and more important, although at least one line does need to remain full-blooded colonist, for the matriarch.

Darn it, why do I keep thinking of new challenges, before I finish the old ones?!

So less than an hour after writing that I wouldn't do it, I'm totally in the mood for it (looking up CC and such).

My personal choice of Multi-PT mod is Ancestral Sims by Bigsimsfan12 (at MTS). Delightfully Maxis Match. Although if/when I try the challenge out, I'd like to see how far I can go with just full-blood without "Species B".

I suggest keeping track of who's related to whom, either by a family tree or simply naming everyone by who their parents and grandparents are. For example, Britta-Chris is gen 3, the daughter of Brittany (so her grandfather is Brendon from gen 1), while her father is Charlie (also gen 1).